Westeros

The Hollywood Reporter, covering HBO CEO Richard Plepler’s presence in Spain for the launch of HBO Spain, reports that Plepler remarked to their reporter that there are “embryonic conversations” going on in HBO headquarters about possible spin-offs between himself, President of Programming Casey Bloys, and the producers of the hit show. To quote Plepler more directly:

This continues the pattern of various executives and producers acknowledging their interest in following the series up with some sort of spin-off after its initial run is complete. Suggestions that have come from various parties to those conversations include a feature film, a continuation of the Game of Thrones story beyond its end (presumably following a mixture of old characters—some of those who survive the whole thing, no doubt—and new creations for the theoretical sequel), and even prequels drawing from the histories in The World of Ice and Fire or the Dunk & Egg novellas as found in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.

Although the ultra limited edition of the GRRM Box, with a run of just 200 priced at $600 each, sold out almost instantly (the limited and deluxe limited sets are still available), publisher Random House has announced that they are donating the rarest of them all—Ultra Limited Edition Box #001—in an auction to benefit the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary.

Here’s the press release with the full details regarding the auction, which will be hosted on EBay and will begin tomorrow, December 2nd:

An official website for the Wild Cards superhero shared-world novels, whose origins lay way back in 1983 with a roleplaying game campaign that George R.R. Martin devised, has now been launched.

Of note are a number of initial blog posts from Martin and other members of the Wild Cards Consortium discussing various aspects of the shared world, from its inception and on down to recent days. It’s a good looking site, featuring a cover gallery, interviews, videos (including a 1988 recording of a Worldcon Wild Cards panel!), sample stories, and more.

The latest entry in the series is High Stakes, which was published this August.

UPDATE: Editor Anne Groell has gotten back to us to confirm that Ben Avery has adapted the script, and that the page count is 148 pages, not 240 pages as previously reported. We have corrected the report below.

“The Mystery Knight”, the third in the Dunk & Egg series of novellas set in the past of the Seven Kingdoms, is finally getting the comic book adaptation fans of the first two adaptions have beeing waiting for, according to Amazon. The adaption was first announced in 2013.

With a July 4 release date—matching the date on Random House’s own site—it looks like it’ll be released directly in collected format.

The Hedge Knight, the well-regarded first adaptation from Dabel Bros Productions, had art by veteran artist Mike S. Miller (who is listed as illustrating The Mystery Knight) and script by Ben Avrey (also returning). Eventually rights for the collected series shifted to Jet City Comics, Amazon’s own imprint, who followed up by then eventually publishing the The Sworn Sword collection which for a time was published by Marvel Comics.

HBO’s just passed along word that they’ve entered into a collaboration with Vintage Wine Estates to create a selection of Game of Thrones wines including a Chardonnay, a Cabernet Sauvignon, and a red blend. (Funnily enough, this isn’t the first time there’s been wines produced with a A Song of Ice and Fire bent—the Brotherhood without Banners fans produced a very limited run of Arbor Gold” and a “Dornish Red” wines—with custom labels and all—for the 2006 Worldcon, L.A. Con IV!)

Here’s the press release below:

In conjunction with the release of the sixth season on Blu-ray and DVD, HBO will be bringing the box set’s exclusive bonus features to life in three groundbreaking events with interactive experiences including photo, video and virtual reality that take fans behind the scenes and immerse them into the world of Game of Thrones.

Game Of Thrones Season 6 - Behind the Scenes will give visitors an exclusive look into the making of HBO’s most popular series via interactive audiovisual displays alongside exciting tech-based experiences. Fans will both learn what it takes to put the epic production together and get to step inside scenes themselves.  Set up as five different experiences themed to individual bonus features available on the Season 6 Blu-rayTM and DVD set, Game of Thrones: Season 6 â`“ Behind the Scenes is designed to look like set pieces and production elements from the show. The event will give fans a chance to go behind the scenes and experience bonus content from Season 6 come to life while taking shareable photos and videos inside the burning Temple of the Dosh Khaleen, holding the door to save Bran, fighting in the Battle of the Bastards and sitting on the Iron Throne. Additionally, fans will have access to a brand new Virtual Reality experience created exclusively for this fan event that lets them train for battle in the wars to come in Westeros and beyond.

Following the November 15 release of Game of Thrones: The Complete Sixth Season on Blu-rayâ„¢ and DVD, the Game of Thrones: Season 6 â`“ Behind the Scenes event will make its first stop at Astor Place in New York City on Friday, November 18 and Saturday, November 19, followed by stops at Grant Park in Chicago on Saturday, November 26 and Sunday, November 27, and at Hollywood & Highland in Los Angeles on Friday, December 9 and Saturday, December 10. The operating hours for all events and dates are 12:30pm-8pm.

When they are finished previewing never-before-seen content and interacting with the experiences, fans will be able to check out all of the exclusive bonus features that inspired these events in its entirety by purchasing Game of Thrones: The Complete Sixth Season on Blu-rayâ„¢ or DVD. The first 20 fans who buy Season 6 on Blu-ray or DVD before the event and bring their box set with them will be granted early access to the experience.

Interactive event experiences include:

• Vaes Dothrak: Watch footage from the exclusive Blu-rayTM/DVD bonus feature “Recreating the Dothraki World,” a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the city of Vaes Dothrak and its importance to Daenerys’s evolution, and stand in for Daenerys as the Temple of the Dosh Khaleen burns around you in a shareable video utilizing green screen technology.
• North of the Wall: “Bran’s Journey” delves into Bran Stark’s shocking and revelatory journey during Season 6. In this interactive experience, fans will see a recreation of the mystical Weirwood tree, learn about the Children of the Forest, and “hold the door” to save Bran from the White Walker army in a shareable video.
• Winterfell: “The Battle of the Bastards: An In-Depth Look,” available exclusively on the Season 6 Blu-ray/DVD set, goes behind the scenes to examine the production challenges of creating this epic event, including explorations of Visual Effects, stunts, and interviews with key cast and crew. In this experiences, modeled after Jon Snow’s command tent, fans can move stone pieces around the battle table and insert themselves into a photo opp of Jon’s position in the incredible aerial mob shot at the height of battle.
• Castle Black: In the Defend the Wall Virtual Reality Experience, modeled after the Castle Black courtyard and created exclusively for the Game of Thrones: Season 6 â`“ Behind the Scenes fan event, fans will wear a VR headset and pick up a virtual crossbow, arrows and shield to hone their battle skills for the wars to come. But beware! You never know what danger lurks around the corner.
• The Workshop: The “18 Hours at the Paint Hall” Blu-rayTM/DVD feature follows all three Game of Thrones shooting units as they converge for the first time at Titanic Studios, better known as the Paint Hall, the series’ Belfast-based production hub. Housed in an aluminum structure modeled after the actual Paint Hall, this workshop will house props and costumes from the show, plus give fans the chance to sit on the Iron Throne and begin their reign as the true ruler of the Seven Kingdoms.

Fans can pre-register for the event now by visiting GoTBehindTheScenes.com for expedited entry. Fast Passes to the above experiences will be available through this site while supplies last.

The Game of Thrones season 6 Blu-Ray and DVD set just came out today, and courtesy of HBO we’ve an exclusive clip from the Histories and Lore extras that have always been so popular. Each year’s production values seem to be going up and up, and from what we’ve seen so far it looks like it holds true this season. Last season’s Histories and Lore earned some attention from the Clio Awards, and we can only imagine this season will follow suit.

Here’s the exclusive, as Brother Ray (Ian McShane) narrates the War of the Ninepenny Kings:

Random House has kindly taken some of illustrations fromthe A Game of Thrones: The Illustrated Edition (which is the central item in the limited edition GRRM Box) and has turned them into wallpapers. The artwork comes from Magali Villeneuve and Marc Simonetti, and while some are previously published some of the pieces are exclusive to the illustrated edition. Grab them while you can!

Linda and I are off to Eurocon 2016 tomorrow, and looks like we’re leaving at just the right time: we got our very first snowfall in our area today, so the contrast with balmy Barcelona will be quite interesting. We’ve just one panel at the convention: The Influence of European Authors and History in the Work of George R.R. Martin. Joining us will be the esteem Alejo Cuervo, founder of Gigamesh, and our friend Javi Marcos of Los Siete Reinos. For those who couldn’t make it to the con, the good news is that Eurocon 2016 will be streamed in full in association with the Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona

In fact, they’ve already got our panel set up, so keep an eye out at 6.30PM (Central European Time):

Besides that, on Saturday we’ll be joining a host of authors and artists (Ian Watson, Adam Roberts, the amazing Enrique Corominas, and more) at an epic signing session at the Gigamesh store (one of the very best SF/F speciality stories in Europe). Should be fun!

There’s a lot of other guests—including Richard Morgan (Altered Carbon, The Steel Remains, Black Man), Andrzej Sapkowski (The Witcher), Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn, The Way of Kings), Aliette de Bodard (The House of Shattered Wings), and more—and some very interesting panels on a wide range of topics (some in Spanish, some in English), so do check out the streaming schedule. And if you’re going to the con, do say hello!

ETA: And of course I forgot to mention that the winners of the Premio Ignotus—the awards of the Spanish national SF/F convention, similar to the Hugos—will be announced at the convention. The World of Ice and Fire is among the nominees in the translated work category, thanks to the fantastic efforts of Gigamesh and its translators (as well as Corominas for his amazing cover art).

The classic game Cluedo (or Clue, to those across the Pond) has received a Game of Thrones remake thanks to HBO and Winning Moves, who sent us a review copy of their latest board game. They’ve already created versions of Risk and Monopoly, so with Cluedo they’ve basically achieved the trifecta of classic board games.

Not only does Game of Thrones Cluedo feature a themed pair of maps (one for King’s Landing and Meereen), characters, and weapons (arakhs, Faceless Men, and more!) to give it that Game of Thrones flavor, but the game throws in some new wrinkles from the classic board game. Most significantly, each player’s character has a unique ability that can be used once per game which, if used right, can tip the scale in favor of a character. The Daenerys character, for example, can move twice on her turn, while Littlefinger can choose to randomly look at one of the cards held by another player after having already been shown one of their cards. The variations continue with the introduction of Intrigue cards, which provide special options such as moving to any location on the board, add six to a roll, or take a peek at a card one player had just shown to another player; some of these cards are to be played immediately or can be held and used until needed.

The most intriguing addition is the White Walker card. There are eight of them in the deck of cards that come with the game, and as game progresses they may be drawn one by one. Each card is set aside, to keep track of how many have been drawn, because the eighth card is special: whoever draws it is immediately out of the game. It adds a certain trepidation, to say the least, in the late game as the next turn of a card could mean the end of the player!

The game can be played by two players—there are a couple of tweaks needed to the standard rules to make it work—but it’s really best with more players, we think. The production quality of Game of Thrones Cluedo is great, although I do miss the classic plastic figurines from the American Clue for the players; here instead there are plastic holders for small cardboard images for each character, which certainly works and can be understood from a cost perspective, but still, it would have been neat to have sculpted figurines of Daenerys, Tyrion, Daario, Jorah, and the rest.

Game of Thrones Cluedo is available now in the U.K. You should also check Winning Moves’ Game of Thrones board game classics.

(For those in the U.S., USAopoly publishes the same variation as CLUE: Game of Thrones Board Game)

Following in the footsteps of the recent The World Hobbit Project and The World Star Wars Project, a group of 40 university researchers have just launched The Game of Thrones Research Project, aiming to capture the views and opinions of thousands of viewers and fans of the series through an online survey.

“Winter is coming”. Game of Thrones’ most famous saying. But what does it suggest and mean to you? We’re trying to gather the views of thousands of followers of the series, on this and a series of other questions, via a web survey at this address: www.questeros.org. Please, help us by visiting and completing it â`“ and then passing it on. Who are we? We are a gathering of university researchers sharing an interest in the changing nature of ‘fantasy’. We’re entirely self-funded. We’re not affiliated with HBO in any way, or with George RR Martin. All our results and findings will be made publicly available â`“ that’s a promise. If you’d like to know more about us, about the project, and why we are doing it, you can find more information on our website. Take the quiz now at www.questeros.org!

The website, with the very clever domain name of questeros.org, offers more in-depth information about what they seek to learn from the survey and how they intend to publish the results. Looking at the survey, it is (as the name would suggest) focused on the TV series, but it does include some questions that relate to—or can be related to—the novels and the TV series relationship with them. They estimate that it takes about 20 minutes to take the survey, depending on how detailed you make your responses (there’s several questions which allow for longer answers), and we encourage all of our readers to take a look at it and contribute your opinions.

The second enhanced edition of the A Song of Ice and Fire series—e-books exclusive to Apple iBooks, filled with glossaries, annotations, illustrations, and more—has now been released and can be purchased on iTunes. As we’ve said previously, these enhanced editions are really aimed at readers who find the mass of characters, locations, and incidents daunting, as the embedded information really helps with keeping track of what’s going on. However, the added art and some of the more obscure trivia in the annotations may well appeal to hard-core fans, so feel free to give it a look as well!

UPDATE: According to a follow-up report this week, as reported by Göteborg Posten, it looks like HBO has indicated that while it found Gotland very interesting it doesn’t have what they’re looking for and so Game of Thrones wll not be filming there. You can find our original report below:

A curious item out of Gotlands Tidningar caught our eye, as it indicated a production company on Gotland was currently involved in collecting location photos for what we can only assume is early location scouting for season 8 of Game of Thrones.

According to Olivia Munck of The Line, a production and location services company in Gotland, over 300 images have been sent to the production in several batches as different environments and places were requested; these include images of the medieval town of Visby, followed by a second batch of Visby photos with a focus on older or more “aged” environments, and then a batch of photos focused on old farmsteads on Gotland (including Kattlunds and Stavgard).

Visby, which was the center of Hanseatic League for two centuries, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the best preserved medieval town in Scandinavia. Its medieval walls stretch for over 2 miles (3 kilometers), it’s packed with ruins of churches and cathedrals (such as St. Nicolai, where Linda and I held a few talks last year). It’s a beautiful, and quite unique, place, which has for over 30 years hosted the famous Medeltidsveckan medieval festival. The rest of Gotland is also dotted with historical sites and sites of archaeological value, and features some beatuiful vistas (as one can see on The Line’s site). And of course, being in Scandinavia, it’s also known to get a good deal of snow which one supposes might be considered useful for the final season of the series.

So, is the production actually going to end up filming in Sweden? Munck was also interviewed by Sveriges Radio after the initial article made the rounds in the press, and there reiterated that she felt the production certainly has some interest in filming there since she doesn’t suppose they would have asked for so many pictures over time if they were writing it off. At the same time, however, she cautioned that nothing was certain at this stage, that no contracts had been signed, and gave it no better than 50/50 odds after citing that Sweden does not have the kind of tax breaks for film productions that Iceland, Spain, Croatia, and other countries where Game of Thrones has filmed previously.

According to Munck, after all these photos the next step for the production (if they continued to be interested) would probably be sending someone over to take a look around in person.

The storming success of the GRRM Box limited edition collection—Random House reports that only 4 of the initial 200 Ultra Limited boxes remain—has led to the publisher and HBO offering fans in the United States (and the U.S. only, alas!) to enter a sweepstakes with the chance to win limited-edition and collectible Game of Thrones prize packs! Three winners will be selected on Tuesday, November 15th. All you have to do to enter—besides live in the U.S. and meet the other rules and requirements—is enter your email address.

What’s in the prize pack? Some amazing stuff, we have to say:

Tomorrow is the official release date for A Game of Thrones: The Illustrated Edition, which is being released to mark the 20th anniversary of the publication of the first novel in the A Song of Ice and Fire series.

Of course, the book has hit shelves in some stores—check your local bookshops!—and there have already been some early reviews. One of these comes by way of our friends at A Podcast of Ice and Fire, and they’ve gone ahead and shared their thoughts on the book. For our part, Linda and I had an early chance to look at the book, and we have to say there’s some fantastic new art from Levi Pinfold, Magali Villeneuve, and Aranzta Sestayo. There’s also the welcome republication of some of Michael Komarck’s beautiful artwork based on the series that he’s done over the years. Definitely worth checking out, and we hope we’ll see more illustrated editions down the road!

For a recent preview featuring some of the artwork, make sure to take a look at Vanity Fair’s article from last month.